Skate #3: Go Skateboarding Day
Today is Go Skateboarding Day across the globe. This year, skaters have been encouraged to use the day to protest racism and police brutality, whilst celebrating the event. From Skate For Justice to Bomb Hills 4 Black Lives, we’re seeing some significant protests coming from the skate world, but whilst is good that skateboarding is using its reach to further this cause, it’s also a useful time to analyse the questionable racial politics of the sport.
Na-Kel Smith spoke out in a 35 minute Instagram video last week about the levels of racism in skateboarding, calling out the rampant use of the n-word, including by extremely high-profile figures in the industry like Jake Phelps. Smith’s words are important, and anybody with even a passing interest in skateboarding should be listening to what he has to say - link here.
But this shouldn’t be news to anybody who knows the industry, racism has been rife throughout the rise and fall of the sport. As it becomes more mainstream heading into the (now delayed) Olympics, it’s time this discrimination was challenged with a little more scrutiny.
One particular problem, that stays in my mind, are the “issues” around Jason Jessee. Jessee is still considered a skateboarding “legend”, despite being dropped by his sponsors in 2018 after a rediscovery of a 1995 interview containing a stream of racist and homophobic slurs and generally abhorrent language. Jessee also has a sordid history of repeatedly and consistently using nazi symbolism in his art and clothing, and a number of other horrifying incidents - this is all detailed in a post on the Slap message boards called “Jason Jessee is a Nazi and Santa Cruz loves him”. And this is in 2018; the community knew about Jessee’s behaviour and beliefs; he had been espousing these in public and on social media the entire time - this wasn’t (and it still wouldn’t be excusable) one video that suddenly came out in public, it was there for all his sponsors to see day in, day out for over 20 years. It should not have needed a message board post to inspire some action from the skateboarding world.
The thing is though, despite Jessee getting dropped by his sponsors, and some discussion around the unacceptability of his behaviour, many high-profile figures in skateboarding actually came out to defend Jessee. So it’s not just Santa Cruz that loves him - it’s the whole skateboarding community. And it seems to come back to some age-old racist arguments, the classics like “he’s always been good to me” or the idea that his talent and contributions to the sport excuse displaying fucking swastikas on his clothing.
The Jason Jessee situation is one of many, it’s just an example; it’s descriptive of the historical approach to racism in skateboarding. And, far more importantly, this is the skateboarding world that skaters like Na-Kel Smith came up in. Smith is talking about the skateboarding world he’s experienced, but this isn’t in a vacuum, this is a global sport with worldwide reach and, like the rest of the world, it has an odious racist history to come to terms with. And if we have seriously influential figures in the sport still supporting a man who wears swastikas on his gloves, then this sport is not anywhere near addressing these problems, as Smith highlights.
It’s great that we’re seeing so many more skaters of colour, trans skaters and women. It’s brilliant that the sport can use its counterculture status to be more inclusive, but that can’t mean just ignoring the past. Especially when it means that this supposedly “inclusive” environment is so toxic and unpleasant for skaters like Smith. These issues need to be dealt with, and some of these dinosaurs who are “living legends” need to acknowledge and address their own roles in the sordid history of racism in skateboarding. Until they do, the sport will never truly be inclusive.
